Nurse Kelsey Abroad (11 page)

She unfastened the string which bound the parcel, and Jane caught her breath as a long, shimmering roll of material escaped from its confines and spread itself before them. It was of a woven metallic fibre, shining, even in the poor light from the bulb which illuminated the stairway and landing, like a cascade of silver shot with all the colours of the rainbow.

“It’s beautiful!” Jane said gently. “That should make a really gorgeous dress!”

“For you,” Dorothy said gently, “not for me! Will you accept it, please, Staff? I’d hate this to go as someone’s curtains or bedcover—and I know two parcels I’ve handed over have ended that way.”

“Your mother would be grieved.” Jane thought of her own mother and of how hurt she would be did she dream any of her children might dispose of her gifts in the same way, but Dorothy shook her head.

“She would rather you had it, that’s true, than it went to make curtains or bedcovers,” she said sincerely. “She won’t stop sending pieces, as she calls them. She buys odd lengths and hopes,” the little smile was back and gone again almost immediately, “one day she’ll send something which will inspire me to make myself a dress which will really help ... by that she means ‘take me out of myself, another favourite expression of hers. She’ll have as much joy as I shall myself if you’ll take it, do what you can with it, and wear it to the Embassy ball. Nurse Dawlish has an old sewing machine, it was her mother's, and she brought it with her. It’s old-fashioned, but it does work, if one has a little patience.”

She was still holding out the parcel of material, and Jane did not know quite how to refuse to accept without seeming churlish. The shimmer of the material delighted her, and she knew she could make the most marvellous dress from it, if one of the others would fit her, but she could not bring herself to take it. She looked up into Dorothy’s anxious face.

“Couldn’t you—wouldn’t you—like to give it a try and make this into something for yourself, my dear?” she asked gently. “If you’d let me help you, we could make it into the perfect ball gown.”

“That’s why I want you to have it,” Dorothy’s rather sallow-complexioned, thin face puckered suddenly, almost childishly. “You are the loveliest person I’ve ever met, Staff, and I mean that. I’ve' heaps more material tucked away. Nurse Dawlish won’t have any of it, she says it’s all too frivolous for her taste, and I think she’s right. She wouldn’t go to the ball in any event, someone has to stay here on duty and she would be happier that way. I want you to have this, please! It was made for someone like you, and for that someone to wear to attract the abstract attention of the man she loves and who doesn’t see her as anything other than a starched uniform and a pair of ministering hands! Dr. Jim’s not human sometimes,” she went on with a totally unexpected, passionate bitterness. “I suppose the correct term is he’s dedicated, but that’s small comfort, as I well know. If my second
fiancé
had not been so ‘dedicated’,” she said very quietly, “he wouldn’t have been killed. He took someone else’s flight because his friend was facing a family crisis. If he’d not done that
...
”

“I’m sorry.” Jane knew her face had turned white and that, for no reason at all, she was shaking from head to foot. It had been a great shock to realise that Dorothy
Wroe had guessed what she had believed to be her secret and hers alone. Now the other nurse was looking compassionately at her, and Jane wondered wildly how much anyone else guessed of the secret she had not admitted, even to herself, until earlier that afternoon.

“Don’t be,” Nurse Wroe said quietly and calmly. “It was all over a long time ago, but that was the second time, and I know I can’t be meant for love. I wouldn’t have experienced this same defeat twice, and with two such wonderful men, otherwise. It’s different for you,”
she
suddenly sounded much more confident. “I’m of Scots descent, and I’m supposed to take after my
great-grandmother
who was said to be ‘fey.’
You
are meant for love, Staff. You are intended to have a happy, successful and emotionally trouble-free life. I feel it in my bones Dr. Jim’s the one for you, but I know he’ll need that pointing out to him by any means in our power. That’s what made me thing of this material,” she admitted, returning to the subject of her visit and holding out the parcel once again. “Please take it. I’m not so clever as my mother, not by a long way, but it would give me great pleasure to help you make this into something you’d normally only dream about!”

Jane, who never in her life had spent much time dreaming of clothes and their effect on other people when worn by herself, could only think of the more personal side of their discussion.

“How did you know?” she asked in awed tones. “And does anyone else
...
guess? I didn’t realise it myself until a
little
while ago,” she admitted.

“No one else has guessed,” Dorothy said simply. “I think only those who know what it is to love wholeheartedly and with a sense of devotion ever know when it’s happened to someone else. That’s how
I
knew, I’m certain. Nurse Dawlish, poor soul, doesn’t believe in love of any kind.” A wry smile touched her mouth for a moment. “She believes all love between men and women is a matter of biological expediency, or so she says. The love of parents for their children has never touch her. She had a most unhappy home-life, and her brothers and sisters were sent to various institutions at an early age, so there’s never been any knowledge of family love.' She would never believe it, not even if you told her yourself.”

“There isn’t anything to tell,” Jane said flatly. “And I don’t suppose there ever will be! Dr. Jim’s much too busy for that sort of thing.”

“All the more reason he needs convincing there’s a place for love in the busiest of lives,” Dorothy said firmly. “And you’d be so good for each other, as well as for the community at large, working as a team.” Despite herself Jane’s attention
was caught a
nd held. In the dim light from the weak bulb above, the material shimmered and gleamed, and, after all, it seemed unkind to refuse an offer so generously made. She heard a slight movement in the hallway below and knew the caretaker was watching and listening, even if he didn’t understand most of what was being said. She acted—and spoke—on impulse.

“
C
ome inside,” she invited. “There’s a better light, and we can think what
is
the right thing to do with this wonderful gift.”

She wasn’t ever really certain how she was persuaded into doing all this, but persuaded she was. Perhaps the beauty of the material itself wove a spell, perhaps Dorothy Wroe’s undoubted enthusiasm for her idea served its purpose. Whatever the reason, the two of them spent the following two to three hours, pinning, snipping and tacking the gleaming fabric, moulding it to Jane’s slender form so that it clung to her figure most of its length, then splayed out into a fuller skirt which caught the light in shimmering beauty as, insecurely tacked as it was, Jane tried it on and paraded before Dorothy’s admiring if critical gaze.

The sewing was less troublesome. Although she remained as firm-lipped and off-hand as ever, Nurse Dawlish proved surprisingly helpful when it came to the actual work.

The three of them spent every spare moment on making this, as Dorothy referred to it, “the dress of Staff’s life”, and indeed, when she was finally ready and waiting for Jim to call for her and escort her to the ball, Jane knew she had never looked so lovely.

Dorothy, to Jane’s regret, refused to make herself anything new, although, as she had proved to Jane, she had been speaking the truth, her cases and drawers were crammed with many lengths of beautiful fabric.

“My black’s good enough,” she insisted, and carefully pressed the much-worn black velveteen which, so Nurse Dawlish informed Jane, she had worn on every social occasion since her arrival in Seonyata.

The black looked well, there was no denying the fact, but Jane sighed as she thought of the flame-red Crimplene she had seen tossed carelessly on one side, the daffodil-yellow crepe, which would have looked so well with Dorothy’s dark hair.

She made no comment, though she was relieved to see Jim had thoughtfully brought an early rose which he ceremoniously presented to Dorothy, his eyes twinkling.

“I thought you might wear black again,” he said gently.' Not, Jane noted ‘the black’, as though Dorothy had many dresses from which to choose. “I thought you might like to wear this with it.”

Dorothy thanked him graciously and fastened the rose to her dress, then she turned to greet Jane as she came through the bedroom door to the living room. Jim didn’t say anything, but Jane saw his glance of astonished admiration gradually giving way to pride and undoubted real interest, even though he said no word. It was with a genuine feeling of pleasurable anticipation that she accepted his arm, and went down to where Kevin was waiting in the hall.

The evening promised to be all Jane had hoped for and more. She had never yet been inside the Embassy, and was totally unprepared for the well-built, solid
-
looking building, the blue and white and gold, with the flashes of scarlet, which made up the magnificent furnishings. There was nothing extravagant or ornate, but everything, even the ash-trays, she noticed, were of good quality and of obvious value.

Dr. Lowth had already warned her that the Embassy did not employ a large staff, but she was conducted to the ladies
’
powder-room by a pleasant-faced girl, and on leaving her wrap and emerging into the huge hall, was met by a young man in evening dress, bearing a tray of champagne cocktails.

Jane had never tasted champagne before and was a little doubtful of its effect upon her naturally exuberant self, but Jim laughed at her fears and toasted her briefly.

“To your prolonged stay at St. George’s, Staff!” he said, and Kevin, along with Dorothy Wroe, echoed his words.

The music was loud and gay. The orchestra, if so .it could be called, was a larger edition of the type of musicians who played at the Golden Fiddle. Kevin asked Dorothy to dance, and for a moment Jane stood and watched them, the girl so quiet-faced, the youth so obviously full of fun and enjoyment, then Dr. Lowth murmured, “Shall we?” and she was in his arms.

She found it remarkably easy to follow him, and the fact that it appeared the only dances known to the assembly appeared to be either a waltz or a quickened version of the quickstep, both of which she knew quite well, was a real help. When the music changed to what
was obviously a more traditional air, she stood for a moment uncertainly, but before Dr. Jim could say anything she found herself face to face with the husband of Madam Brentlov. Jane could not be rude, and when Jim smiled a deprecating smile and said he would be expected to do his duty, she watched him whirl away with another matronly figure she recognised as belonging to a lady who had been a victim of the epidemic.

After that she scarcely spoke to him again all the evening. She couldn’t have said he was avoiding her, but he seemed to be fully occupied in dancing with every woman who had been inside St. George’s as a patient since Jane’s arrival, as well as a number of others she did not recognise.

Kevin persisted in asking her to dance, even when the Brentlovs more or less added her to their circle. Somehow or other Kevin appeared to be persistently by her side, and although she liked him well enough she still could not rid herself of the strange feeling that she ought not to trust him very far.

She glanced across the room to where Dr. Lowth was chatting with two or three obvious business men of the town. He caught her glance and for a moment a smile flickered across his face to be replaced almost immediately by a scowl of such ferocity she turned round to see what could be the cause of such a distinct change of expression.

“Ready, Staff?” It was Kevin, feet tapping, his arms extended. There was nothing she could do but slip into them, and at the other side of the room Dr. Jim’s scowl deepened.

Although she realised Dr. Lowth was doing his obvious duty, Jane found herself wishing with all her heart he would once more ask her to dance with him. Yet just as she thought he was crossing the room with that purpose
in mind, she turned and found herself face to face with Karl Brotnovitch.

Dancing with Karl, she thought with vague amusement, was rather like dancing with a bear in a uniform. No, not a bear, a tiger, held in leash. Jane wasn’t aware of holding herself in stiff resistance to him as he guided her round the room, but Karl was aware of it. He sto
p
ped abruptly and whispered in her ear, but in a voice Jane felt which must have been heard throughout the building.

“Relax, Nurse,” he said. “Nobody can enjoy a dance with the demeanour of a poker! Listen to the music! Let your feet move with it
...
that’s better! One might think I had come here simply for the purpose of arresting you!”

“For what?” Jane tried to speak lightly, teasing him, but his cold eyes did not smile even though the corners of his mouth moved in the semblance of a smile.

“Just to make certain you were
...
safe!” he surprised her by saying, quietly and gravely, as though this were a matter of the utmost importance.

“I don’t see why I should be in danger!” Jane protested, still speaking as lightly as she could. “I don’t know anything or anyone here, except for the people and doings of the hospital.”

“Then you will also know nothing of those who work in the research laboratories,” Karl suggested quietly. “Or are some of them your patients?”

“I
...
don’t know.” Jane was startled for a moment, shaken from her attempted lightheartedness by the gravity of his voice. “I don’t know the occupations of
all
our patients, sir!” she said, a mocking note on the emphasis of the last word, which Karl completely ignored. “Why?” Jane was driven to ask. “Does it matter?”